I’ve found another page in the TSP 35 workshop manual confirming that the 8MW was LHD only as well as tilting (same as the 7MW). Quite why that illustration of a 4MW cab has been labelled 5MW is a mystery: it has to be a typo, as the 5MW had its wheels set back. Robert
I reckon this was taken at Aeroport de Lille-Lesquin which was close to there yard ?
Looks like it had just been converted here,looking how shiny the paint is ?
DEANB:
I reckon this was taken at Aeroport de Lille-Lesquin which was close to there yard ?Looks like it had just been converted here,looking how shiny the paint is ?
Ah! New pic of the Loste Pacific with a 7MW cab (or was it an 8MW 
- perhaps we’ll never know!). And look! The picture is the full frame version of the same set of pictures that appeared in that Charge Utile magazine article (see pic below). At least we now know it was plane she was towing!
Cheers,
Robert
I was thinking about the ERF presence in the Middle East. We know NGCs were exported to Dubai, Saudi and Kuwait. One of the companies was Falcon Freight who had five NGCs based in Dubai and five more in Jeddah (Saudi). There is a big company now called Falcon Freight that has transport hubs all over the Middle East and it makes me wonder if it is the same company and whether batches of NGCs were not dispatched to other hubs in the region.
That set me thinking about the other M/E countries. By the time the NGC was in production, substantial numbers of earlier MW (mostly 4MW) cabbed ERFs were already in service in Oman, Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Jordan. ERFs were sold in Bahrain too around that time. Given that NGCs were successful in the Middle East it seems to me very likely that more (if not the rest of the 91) were dispatched to the Gulf region.
Robert
I don’t think this picture was taken at Lille airport. There is no hangar big enough for a 747 
I presume this is maybe taken at Le Bourget because UTA had its maintenance base overthere… Otherwise somewhere in the Middle East■■?
mandator:
I don’t think this picture was taken at Lille airport. There is no hangar big enough for a 747
Might be a clue here in the caption given to the picture by Charge Utile. Robert
Am I right in translating that caption ^^^ to mean that the Pacific had a Volvo back-end? If so, could this mean that it was this vehicle rather than the Cauvas one that had a Volvo back-end? Or could it be that they both had Volvo back-ends? The two arguments for the the Cauvas unit hang in the air! Robert
mandator:
I don’t think this picture was taken at Lille airport. There is no hangar big enough for a 747
Your probably right “mandator” thats why i put the question mark. A french driver seemed to think possibly Toulouse or Charles de Gaulle. However i see Le Bourget is very close to Charles de Gaulle so you are
probably right. 
Just been sent this ‘sister’ picture to the tank-container one of KFH 249P further up the page. robert
EDIT. Sorry! I’ve removed it temporarily as I’m seeking some permissions in the background . Cheers
S.Jones / Trans Arabia one.
DEANB:
S.Jones / Trans Arabia one.
Better in colour! Robert
It transpires that both these pics of Istanbul-bound ERFs were taken by Chris Jeffries who drove for Eric Vick at the time and is now their Operations Manager. Chris informs me that the NGC (KFH 249P) was at that time being driven by the late Roger Williams. Robert
It’s great to have the experienced eye for detail that a craftsman lorry modeller has. I mentioned a while back that Ashley had noticed that the breather pipes on KFH 249P were anchored differently in various photos and through questioning of driver and fitter we were able to establish that EV found a more secure way of fixing them to the cab.
Another detail Ashley noticed (which I forgot to bring to your notice earlier) is that the Eric Vick pair underwent a repaint / signwriting at some stage (in particular, the doors and cab side). The open door of Chris Jeffries’s picture reminded me of this. So I present you with the two versions in chronological order. Personally, I prefer the earlier one, but hey ho! Judge for yourselves. Robert
ERF-NGC-European:
I’ve found another page in the TSP 35 workshop manual confirming that the 8MW was LHD only as well as tilting (same as the 7MW). Quite why that illustration of a 4MW cab has been labelled 5MW is a mystery: it has to be a typo, as the 5MW had its wheels set back. Robert0
Maybe the answer to the conundrum is more obvious than we think: that the 8MW cab is the same as a 7MW, except its mounting brackets are designed to fit 4 and 6MW (even-numbered, set-forward axle) chassis’, for retrospective fitting? Of course, it means that the cab front must be cantilevered out over the front end of the chassis rails, to give the wheels clearance to the front step, requiring some sort of extension bracket arragement. That would be main the physical difference between the two cabs. I’m convinced now. I’m putting my money on this. 
tiptop495:
hey, nice, Eric Vick is still advertising today with an ERF.Eric,
Yes Eric, isn’t it touching that Eric Vick transport STILL use an NGC in their promotional visual literature! Robert
[zb]
anorak:ERF-NGC-European:
I’ve found another page in the TSP 35 workshop manual confirming that the 8MW was LHD only as well as tilting (same as the 7MW). Quite why that illustration of a 4MW cab has been labelled 5MW is a mystery: it has to be a typo, as the 5MW had its wheels set back. Robert0
Maybe the answer to the conundrum is more obvious than we think: that the 8MW cab is the same as a 7MW, except its mounting brackets are designed to fit 4 and 6MW (even-numbered, set-forward axle) chassis’, for retrospective fitting? Of course, it means that the cab front must be cantilevered out over the front end of the chassis rails, to give the wheels clearance to the front step, requiring some sort of extension bracket arragement. That would be main the physical difference between the two cabs. I’m convinced now. I’m putting my money on this.
I take my hat off to you: I should have known I could count on you, ‘Anorak’, to come up with a solution; and your explanation is simple, logical, elegant and above all it lies entirely in keeping with ERF’s odd number / even number coding system for its cabs.
If this is the case, it might after all account for the cab on Pountain’s UGE 852R. It wouldn’t, however, account for the two 3MW-cabbed Belgian MCCs which would have simply had 7MW cabs as I have already suggested. In the case of the Pacific at Loste I think we can assume that that was an entirely separate engineering feat probably involving the 7MW cab of one of their existing NGCs.
Like you, I’m putting my money on this explanation!
Robert
As an aside to my ^^^above reply re 8MW cabs, I would point out that there is almost certainly no danger that one of our known NGCs will turn out to be a re-cabbed non-NGC which used to have a 4MW / 6MW cab. I say this because I know of no 4x2 units with that cab that was sold in UK or Europe (all 6x4s). The only single example of a 4x2 4MW that I can find went to NZ, and as that was a wrecker even that one may have been a cut down 6x4. Robert
ERF-NGC-European:
As an aside to my ^^^above reply re 8MW cabs, I would point out that there is almost certainly no danger that one of our known NGCs will turn out to be a re-cabbed non-NGC which used to have a 4MW / 6MW cab. I say this because I know of no 4x2 units with that cab that was sold in UK or Europe (all 6x4s). The only single example of a 4x2 4MW that I can find went to NZ, and as that was a wrecker even that one may have been a cut down 6x4. Robert
Wouldn’t that premise logically translate as 8 MW being mainly meant as a factory identifier and referring specifically to loose 7MW cabs provided with a factory made mounting kit which made them 8 MW by default ?.Which might answer the question as to the mounting kits all being factory designed if not also fabricated specifically for their respective applications.Which then raises the question of loose 7 MW cabs and mounting kits also being provided for odd number retrospective use in addition to 8 MW.So it’s quite possible that odd number MW’s could also have been retrospectively modified with loose 7 MW cabs just as even number types could.I’d guess that the Cauvas unit might fall into that category ?.IE retrospective fit of a loose 7 MW cab using factory supplied mounting kit ?.
Can’t go through 141 pages to find if this has been posted before, if it has… 
if it hasn’t…
( sent via a friend from a French forum)
